


yoo idk what to call it but it's my story

by hondatohru14



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, Mad King Ryan Haywood, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:57:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 20,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2736821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hondatohru14/pseuds/hondatohru14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AH fan wakes up in Minecraft and soon realizes it's an AH Minecraft AU. Unfortunately, it's a Mad King Ryan Minecraft AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sterling Foodburger](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sterling+Foodburger).



> also haha i'm super uncomfortable writing characters cussing so you'll see me get real creative with avoiding that. consequently though, i probably don't write the guys very well.  
> oh well.  
> i enjoy writing this anyway.

It was bright. The outside-in-the-sunlight-on-a-clear-day kind of bright. A tired, irritated sigh escaped the waking figure, which was abruptly cut off as they got a look at their surroundings. Their attention immediately went to their own self, how they looked. Long blond hair (longer than usual, anyway, and much neater looking), a pink dress with a purple sash around her waist, pointed ears with a magical-looking flower tucked behind one, and sandals.

“…Holy crap.”

An even more startling discovery was made: new appendages that hadn’t been there before. A pair of beautiful (but small) white wings which protruded from her upper back.

“Holy crap!”

She didn’t want to say where she was out loud; it was too ridiculous. And yet, here she was. As dumb and weird as it sounded, she was inside of a game. Minecraft, specifically. Modded, too, if the wings were anything to go by. Which kinda made sense, in a weird way. Last time she played, she had used a more player model mod, which gave her character wings. And if that mod was active, she could also assume that the other one she used would-

Wait. Hold up. How’d she even get here? She didn’t remember anything happening; her memory was acting up. Was it a dream? …But it seemed too real to be a dream. She pinched herself to check, and yelped when it hurt. So. Not a dream, then. Now what? She looked at the sky to see that it was still morning, which was good. If she was actually stuck here, might as well gather some supplies. She looked around, and stopped dead still when she saw a huge monolith of a building jutting into the sky a small distance from her. If that was what she thought it was… She began to jog towards it, slowing down when she had to go over a hill, but when she reached the top, she saw confirmation that it was indeed what she thought it was. In all, there were six houses, including the monolith, in a square, and they were surrounding a huge logo made of wool: it was a green circle encompassing a similarly colored star with a black joystick in the middle, all on a black background. Achievement City.

“Holy crap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise the words "holy crap" are not the only words she knows.


	2. two.

She didn’t know how the crew would react to a complete stranger stumbling upon their city, so it might have been a better idea to not go and explore the place, but she couldn’t resist. Fortunately, it seemed nobody was home so she didn’t disturb anyone while she looked around, starting with Geoff’s house. She was amazed at just how much bigger it seemed once she was actually in the building.

“Helloo!! Anybody home?” Her only reply was a slight echo accompanied by… what sounded like water. She looked up, remembering the indoor swimming pool. And there it was, just floating above her, held only by signs. Which was an even stranger sight to see in person than it was in the game. After a moment, she realized she didn’t know how long it would be until somebody got back and she needed to look around while she still could.

Her next stop was what was previously known as the Kung Fu house, now Ryan’s residence. She poked her head in only for a second, simply to see for herself the multiple Edgars that he kept in his house. After a giggle when she found they were indeed there, she headed over to Jack’s house. Michael’s house followed, and she couldn’t resist going down into the basement and walking to Gavin’s house through the Team Nice Dynamite passageway. When she popped her head out of the other end in Gavin’s trophy room of victory, she looked to see that there were only two towers there. So they hadn’t gotten to the Mad King Ryan let’s play yet. That didn’t tell her which let’s play episode they were on though, only which ones they weren’t. Afterwards there was Ray’s dirt shack, which, being a dirt shack, wasn’t all that impressive and didn’t require more than a quick glance around the place.

She walked outside of the house and her eyes wandered over to a certain thing that had piqued her curiosity ever since it had first appeared in the videos: the forbidden tunnel. She glanced around again to make sure no one was around, and made her way over to it. Well, nobody was here to stop her. Might as well. She walked slowly down the tunnel, and when she reached a corner, she barely poked her head around the corner, and she was instantly disappointed. It seemed like it was just a tunnel that lead through the hill. Sure enough, she walked out of the exit to find nothing. Just the landscape. She sighed, then turned around and started to head back through the tunnel. However, when she neared the corner, she ran into something that had suddenly appeared from behind it. After the moment of temporary confusion passed, she looked to find that it was not a something, but a someone. For a second, the messy, curly hair made her think it was her brother, but she blinked again and realized that it was Michael. Not a blocky Banjo Kazooie Minecraft avatar, but actually Michael, wearing a small headset and dressed in a bear hoodie and yellow shorts.

She nearly fainted on the spot.

“Who. Are you.” Her heartbeat quickened when she realized he had a diamond sword in his hands, ready to take a swing if needed. She put her hands up in a defensive way, although she seriously doubted it would actually offer any protection.

“I uh… I promise I didn’t mean to intrude or anything, I just stumbled on the place and I was curious I was just having a look around I wasn’t harming any-”

“Shut up.” She froze, but then relaxed a little as she realized it was more of a slightly annoyed shut up rather than an I’m-about-to-kill-you shut up when he put his sword away. “Ok look, sorry if I scared you.” He still sounded annoyed. Rats. She really wanted to make a good impression on these guys. “But I still wanna know who you are, where you came from, and why you’re here.” His gaze was firmly fixed on the appendages on her back. “Just don’t ramble again.”

“Ok.” She took in a deep breath. How could she even explain it? “Well, for starters, my-”

“Michael!” A voice called from the city. Was that… Geoff? He gave a short sigh and turned towards the tunnel entrance, then back to her.

“Wait here. You move from this spot, you’re gonna regret it.” Then he was gone. She peeked around the corner to watch him, and he jogged out of the tunnel to the middle of the logo where one of the others was waiting. She squinted her eyes to see if it actually was Geoff, but Michael was standing right in her line of vision. Oh well. Might as well figure out what she was going to say to him when he came back. So he asked for her name; that was easy enough. Where she came from, though… That might be a little difficult to explain. An alternate universe? Another world? She wasn’t sure how to word it. “Hey.” She almost jumped out of her skin when Michael’s voice was suddenly next to her. She turned to face him.

“…Hey.” She noticed he was wearing a crown. So they hadn’t even gotten to King Michael yet.

“So you still need to answer my questions.”

She gave a small, slightly nervous laugh. “Yeah, uh, about that… Ok, so I only know how to answer one of them. My name’s-”

“Who’s that?” Michael gave an irritated grunt at the newcomer.

“Well maybe if we don’t get interrupted again, I can actually find out, Gavin!” She couldn’t help but peek around Michael to get a look at Gavin. He was wearing all green (of course), with scarves hanging down his back from the base of a hood that was pulled over his head. He had on a short sleeved tunic over pants that were neatly tucked into a pair of brown boots. She noticed he was also wearing a headset. She glanced back at Michael to find that he was staring at her. “Ahem, you were saying…?”

She straightened up, embarrassed. “Right. I’m Erin. As for where I’m from and why I’m here… I’m honestly… I…” Her eyes wandered to the ground. Acting clueless might actually be the better route. It’d certainly be a lot less confusing, for both them and her. “I don’t know. I just woke up this morning not too far from here, and happened to see the giant building, and just… followed it here.” Well, that was partially the truth, at least. After a moment, Michael turned towards the tunnel entrance and gestured to her.

“Good enough, I guess. C’mon, let’s go see what Geoff thinks.” He started towards the entrance, pushing Gavin out in front of him, who protested to being moved. She followed slowly, her heartbeat picking up very fast. She was about to meet Geoff. The one who founded Achievement Hunter. Then Gavin piped up.

“But Michael, you’re the king now, remember? You’re in charge for the week.” Michael stopped.

“…Right. Right, yeah. I keep forgetting.”

Gavin huffed. “Obviously! Geoff said that you left your crown just lyin’ around again this morning!” Erin raised her eyebrows in amusement while a small grin appeared. So that was why Geoff had called Michael over earlier, and why she hadn’t noticed the crown before.

“Well I didn’t want to dirty it up by wearing it when I went hunting! You know how messy that can be!”

The other crossed his arms in mock annoyance. “That’s why I prefer killing them from a distance. You don’t get blood spattered all over your clothes. Maybe if you used a bow and arrow-”

“I’m terrible with a bow, and you know that.” Michael was slightly grinning now. “Not everybody can be as great at killing things while cuddled up safely in a hidey hole as you, Gavin.”

“Oi! It’s not like I’m scared!”

“Oh yeah? What about the time when you-” Erin coughed, and both men’s attention went back to her. “…Right.” Michael started musing to himself, and after a moment he came to a conclusion. “I’m assuming if you just woke up here this morning you have no shelter?” She shook her head. “Well, I guess until we figure out what’s happened with you, you could probably crash in Kerry’s place; he’s not here right now. Probably won’t be for a while. C’mon.” He and Gavin turned and walked out, heading towards Michael’s house, and Erin followed. Even though she had already explored the place, she still couldn’t help but let her eyes wander, and she spotted somebody heading towards Geoff’s house. It was Mr. Geoff Ramsey himself, clad in green Halo armor (sans the helmet).

“Well?” Michael and Gavin were waiting for her at the door. She quickly went over to them, and followed them inside and down the ladder leading to the basement, otherwise known as Kerry’s room. “This is it.” It wasn’t much, just a tiny room with paintings on the wall and a bed in the middle of the room, with only one block between it and the wall on both sides. It was small, but at least it was something. She walked inside, so it wouldn’t turn awkward, and sat down on the bed. It was actually kinda comfy. Michael, however, still stood there. Her attempts to keep the situation from being awkward failed miserably. “You uh… Just… Don’t mess with anything, okay? I’m not gonna tell you that you have to stay in here the whole time, just don’t get lost or anything.” He pointedly looked at Gavin. “And I don’t care if I am king, I think I should still talk to Geoff about this. It’s one thing to decide who’s doing what chores and pick from a list what games we’re gonna play for a week, but this is an entirely different situation. I’m gonna go find him.” Gavin opened his mouth to say something, but when Michael turned to leave, he shut it and followed suit.

At that moment, Erin’s mouth decided to voice a thought before she could think it over.

“He was headed to his house.” Both Gavin and Michael stopped cold and looked at her, slight alarm on their faces. It took her a second to realize her mistake; she shouldn’t know who Geoff is yet. Crap. Crap crap crap. “At least…” She had to cover. Fast. “I think it was him. Gavin said something about Geoff giving you your crown, which you didn’t have when I first saw you… And after you talked to who I’m assuming was Geoff, you came back with it on… So. I mean, I think I just saw you talking to him earlier is all. I could be wrong, and it could have not been Geoff.” She mentally slapped herself. “Is… is Geoff the one who wears green armor?” Was that good enough? She really, really hoped so.

Silence took over the room for a second, but it felt like an eternity.

It was Gavin that broke it.

“…Yup, that’s him.” He turned to Michael and slightly prodded him.

He seemed to snap back to reality and glanced away. “Yeah. …Thanks.” The two abruptly turned and left. Erin immediately fell back onto the bed and physically slapped herself in the face.

“Ugh, you idiot! You stupid, stupid, stupid idiot!” She laid there for a few minutes, letting the stupidity of the situation seep in. She very likely just made herself even less trusted than she already was. As it was, it was probably already weird to just find a stranger wandering around your home, and if they apparently already knew the people who lived there, that just made it worse. She sighed. Very loudly. To be honest, she had no idea what to do. She could just sit down here and ponder over what a dumb mistake she had just made, or she could wander around outside and ponder over what a dumb mistake she had just made. After a moment, she decided to go for the latter and was soon outside the house. She didn’t see Michael, Gavin, or Geoff anywhere, which honestly made her nervous. The feeling grew when she realized she didn’t see anybody. What if they were all in some meeting about her? Talking about the girl who *claimed* she didn’t know anything, and yet still somehow knew who Geoff was. And tried to cover up for it terribly. Just to add another weird factor in, the girl had wings. She sighed and turned, then nearly jumped a foot back when she saw Ryan Haywood, kilt and all, standing there next to her.

“Sorry if I startled you. I just couldn’t help but be intrigued by those wings. Were you born with them, or…?” She did notice he wasn’t really looking at her when he was talking; he was looking at her wings, as if he was studying them.

“I uh… I guess I was born with them? …I’m honestly not sure how to answer that.”

Ryan nodded to himself. “Right, right, because you don’t remember anything, sorry.” Her eyes widened slightly. So Michael had already talked to everybody about her, apparently. In the five minutes she had a pity party for herself, word of her had spread, and seeing how the guys all seemed to wear headsets, word could spread very quickly. So everybody probably already knew about her slip-up. Great.

Ryan stuck out his hand. “I’m Ryan, by the way.” …Maybe not.

She reached out and shook his hand. “Erin. It’s uh… It’s nice to meet you.”

“So, you’ve only met Michael and Gavin, right?” Erin nodded slowly, unsure of where he was going with this. “Wanna meet the other guys, since it looks like you’ll be here a while?”

Oh. That… That wasn’t what she thought he was gonna say at all. “Yeah, that’d be great!” She might’ve been a little too enthusiastic about meeting everyone, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice. Whew.

“Well, I think two of them are going to show up in three… two… one.” Sure enough, Ray and Jack came into view from their right, hopping down over Gavin’s house. “Hey, guys! Come here, there’s someone I want you to meet!” The two walked over nonchalantly, and Jack was the first to speak.

“So you’re the girl that just appeared this morning, huh? My name’s Jack.” She shook his outstretched hand, and then Ray followed suit and introduced himself as well.

“I’m Erin. It’s uh… It’s really great to meet you!” While she may have appeared to be somewhat calm, on the inside, she was practically screaming with excitement. Meeting the AH guys was, of course, a kind of dream of hers, but she never actually imagined it happening. And particularly not in this kind of situation.

“Likewise.”

Ryan nodded to the two. “Alright, I just wanted you to meet her and vice versa. You can go get whatever Geoff forgot this time.”

Ray started towards Geoff’s house, Jack in tow. “Redstone this time. You’d think he’d remember the one thing he needs to actually make the pistons work.” Redstone? Erin guessed they came from AH Labs; after all, it was in the direction they'd come from. The two walked away, Jack laughing at a joke Ray made at Geoff’s expense, and Ryan turned to Erin.

“Geoff’s busy, so you’ll meet him later. For now, though, I suppose I could show you around a little bit.”

“You uh… you don’t have to… I mean, if you have something else you need to do, then…” She trailed off, figuring being silent would be better than stumbling over her own words even more.

Ryan, however, shook his head and grinned. “Nah. I don’t have anything to do.”

The rest of the day was spent with a tour of the place, and they didn’t even cover anywhere close to the whole city. Erin tried very carefully to not act like she already knew the place, but she did have a couple more accidents, such as running ahead to a spot, then having to act like she guessed where it was, or accidentally correcting Ryan if he got a name wrong, but that was under her breath, and he didn’t react to it. She really hoped he didn’t hear her. But when all was said and done and it was time to head back, he was still treating her like a normal person, so she figured everything was fine. When they got back to the city, they were able to catch Geoff heading into his house and get that set of introductions out of the way as well. Judging by the fact that Geoff didn’t tell her to get out, she assumed that Michael had confirmed it was alright for her to be there.

Night had fallen though, so she and Ryan said their goodnights and each went to their own resting place as the remainder of the crew did the same.

She actually slept better that night than she had in weeks.


	3. three.

The next morning, Ryan continued to be startling as she discovered him waiting for her outside the house. As soon as she walked outside, he handed her a sword.

“You remember if you know how to hunt?” Erin shook her head and shrugged. “Well, you’re about to learn real quick. We’re on hunting duty today.” That was fast. She didn’t expect to suddenly be a part of their routine. Then again, Michael probably wanted her busy so she couldn’t be up to anything. And Ryan was probably one of the people most capable of stopping her if she did try to do something suspicious.

Ryan headed towards Geoff’s house, and gestured for her to follow. They ended up heading past Geoff’s house, into the northwest area of the map, which was covered in trees. The journey was fairly silent, which did nothing to calm down Erin’s nerves that had been set on edge as soon as she thought of something. Of all the things Michael could’ve had her doing, he had her hunting. Killing mobs. She had no idea how she was going to explain the second mod she had active. Honestly, she really hoped that it was just the more player model mod that was up and running. If the other one was… Well, it’d be really hard for her to explain her way out of that one. Maybe. Then again, she did have the memory loss excuse to fall back on.

A sharp pain in her shoulder snapped her out of her thoughts fast. She yelped unwillingly and reached with her other hand to find an arrow protruding out of her shoulder.

“Oh, sh-!” Ryan pulled her behind a tree as another arrow flew by right where she was standing. “Here’s a tip: pay attention.” She nodded, tears in her eyes. Man, that stupid arrow hurt. “Alright, I know this is going to hurt, but it’ll feel better afterwards, trust me.” He turned her around and before she could even think about what he was doing, he yanked the arrow out of her shoulder and she yelled. Loudly. But he was right, it didn’t hurt nearly as much. But wait, wouldn’t pulling it out make it bleed even more? She craned her neck back so she could see, but she didn’t see any red. Huh. “Alright, now here’s some quick training: kill the skeleton.” She froze, and turned to stare at Ryan. Oh heck no. She did not want to- “And I’m going to be right here, watching, so if anything goes wrong, I can step in and help. Sometimes the best way to learn is to just do it.” She wasn’t going to be able to get out of this, she could tell. She took a deep breath. Welp. Might as well get it over with.

She slipped out from behind the tree and narrowly avoided an arrow that immediately whizzed towards her from a surprisingly life-like skeleton. Not blocky at all. Then again, considering that the guys weren’t blocky either, it actually wasn’t all that surprising. She ran straight towards it and swung the sword as hard as she could, and she hit it back into the sunlight. It recoiled as it suddenly caught fire, and ran back towards the shade. Realizing she could kill it without actually being the one to land the final blow, she just pushed it back out. It clattered in pain (could the skeleton even feel pain?) as the sunlight killed it, and it disintegrated, leaving behind one bone and a bow. She waited a moment, and when nothing happened to her, she breathed a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t have to deal with it yet. She collected the bow and bone and watched them disappear into her inventory in silent amazement as Ryan walked up to her.

“Not bad. Would’ve been quicker to just use your sword instead of letting it burn to death, but still very effective.” How could she get it back out of her inventory? She suddenly realized she knew exactly what she held, like a list popped up in her mind, and when she wanted the bow in her hand, the bow appeared and the sword disappeared. Interesting. “There’s a zombie over there under that cluster of trees. Would you like to try your hand at that, too?” She shook her head, and Ryan laughed. “Too bad, you’re killing it anyways.” She grumbled under her breath about not wanting to kill the dumb thing, but she got up and headed towards it nonetheless.

She glanced back at Ryan, and saw that he was watching her from a short distance. Maybe she could have something go wrong intentionally and then he’d have to come in and save her. But she couldn’t just be a damsel in distress all day. And besides, when they eventually would run into a harmless passive mob, how could something go _that_ wrong? Things don’t always go as planned, anyways. If she intentionally let something happen, it could turn out worse than she wanted it to and she could die. And she didn’t know if she’d re-spawn. Accepting her fate, she turned back towards the nasty thing. She trudged towards it, and it watched her every step of the way.

Once she got within its reach, it attempted to rake her with its fingernails, but it was easy to dodge. She slashed with her sword once, and it recoiled back, but quickly came at her again. Dodge, strike. Easy enough.

“Watch out!” Huh? She looked behind her just in time to get an explosion to the face.

 

 

Ringing. Everything was ringing, and it needed to shut up. She pushed herself up on her arms, and promptly almost fell over. She was too dizzy, and the ringing still kept going. She looked up to see a somewhat green mass making its way over to her very quickly. The zombie? In any case, it wasn’t Ryan; he wasn’t green. She swung her sword in the general direction of it, surprised when she felt it actually make contact, and she heard the zombie gurgle as it died. She could see somewhat straight now, and the ringing finally took the hint and started to shut up. Ryan was standing right behind where the zombie was, having just swung his sword. Apparently they both went for it. Maybe he’d been the one to kill it, then.

“Are you o-” He cut off short as alarm made itself evident on his face. And he was looking at her. She looked down at herself to see black making its way up her arms and legs, covering even her clothes. Crap. She’d killed it. She scrambled back, away from Ryan. She had no idea what he’d do as the black eventually covered all of her, and her body began to change. Her hair grew shorter, her fingernails became longer and jagged, some of her teeth disappeared, her skin peeled off in places, even her clothes changed, and strangely enough, none of it hurt. It just felt… weird. Uncomfortable, like wearing clothing that doesn’t quite fit, but it quickly felt normal. When the black faded away, her skin was no longer pale; it was green. She was the spitting image of the zombie she had just killed. She looked at herself in disbelief. Even though she knew she’d had the morph mod active, it was still hard for her mind to process that she actually turned into a zombie.

But ok, yeah, great, she could turn into a zombie. And she really wanted to turn back. Now. But nothing happened. How was she supposed to turn back?! “What the… Erin?” She tried to speak, but all that came out was a guttural groan. Crap. She _really_ needed to turn back ASAP. Maybe it was like the inventory. She tried to think of the morphs, and sure enough, the list popped into her head. It was a short list, considering she’d only killed one mob so far, but she thought of her own self, and the black began to make its way across her body again. A few seconds later, she was sitting there as her usual self again. She looked up to see Ryan standing there, having not moved a muscle, staring at her as if she was the plague.

“What. The-”

“Yeah, ok, yeah, that was really, really weird, and it honestly freaked me out, too, I’m sorry.” She hurriedly pushed herself up, and put her sword away to further show she had not hostile intent. “…I wasn’t expecting that, either.” They stood there like that for a few seconds, Erin looking at the ground while Ryan just stared.

“…Well. I guess… We’ll uh. Keep going, then.”

She looked up in surprise. “You’re not gonna even ask how it works?”

“I would, but if you don’t remember anything, you wouldn’t know the answer.” Crap. Another screw-up. Good job, Erin.

“…True. I don’t know, yeah.” Silence. That stare was really unnerving. “You uh… you wanna lead? Since I don’t know my way around very well yet?” Ryan nodded, and the two set off.

The rest of the day actually went pretty great once the morph discovery was out of the way. She could relax a lot more. As the hunt went on, they discovered that she only morphed automatically if it was a mob she hadn’t already killed yet. Or rather, Ryan discovered it, as Erin already knew about it. Another discovery Ryan made was that when she was a zombie, she did get hurt by healing potions. He immediately offered her food and said that it was an accident, that he didn’t mean to drop it. She took it and assured him it was alright and shook off the uneasy feeling that he’d done it purposely. They later returned downtown with a good amount of meat, which they put in the storage under Geoff’s house.

Lying in bed that night, she couldn’t help but feel a little bit of dread about the following day. What if, when Ryan told everyone, they decided she was too dangerous and kicked her out? Then what? Well, she knew enough about Minecraft to know how to survive, and she could always morph into something useful maybe. She could be a zombie; nothing would attack her. Unless one of the guys found her and thought she was an actual zombie. Which could happen. And she’d always have to stay in the shade. That would suck. She rolled onto her side, and after what seemed like an eternity, she finally fell asleep.


	4. four.

This time when she walked outside the next morning, Ryan and Gavin were waiting outside. Honestly, Erin was very worried. This was it. She was gonna get kicked out.

“Today we’re going mining.” Ryan handed over a pickaxe and a shovel, both of which she took, surprised. “Gavin’s joining us.” Very surprised.

“…Okay?”

“The mine we’ll be going in is this way.” Ryan started walking past Michael’s house, and Gavin and Erin followed. Again, it was relatively silent travelling until Gavin spoke up.

“So. Erin, right?” She nodded. “There’s something I wanna ask you.”

“Sure, what is it?”

“…Can you fly?” She had never actually thought about that. Since she’d woken up, the thought never occurred to her to actually try flying. Which was strange, because it would probably be one of the first things anybody would think of upon the discovery that they had wings.

“I… actually hadn’t tried flying yet.”

Gavin tugged on Ryan’s sleeve. “Can we stop and see? It shouldn’t take too long.” Ryan didn’t stop. “I know you’re curious too, Ryan, don’t try to act like you’re not.”

Ryan paused at that. “…Fine.” Gavin jumped excitedly.

“Awesome! Thanks, Ryan!”

Erin, however, stood there very nervously. “I uh… I… I don’t know what to do…”

“Well, try flapping your wings or something.”

The next half hour was spent with Erin trying various things to get herself off of the ground for more than two seconds, while Gavin gave a string of ideas that never really helped and Ryan watched, amused, from a short distance.

Erin finally stopped and leaned up against a tree, exhausted. “Look… Gavin… I don’t think it’s going to work. These things are too small to support me.”

He seemed a little disappointed, but still agreed. “…Yeah. Didn’t really seem like it was gonna happen, did it?”

Ryan took the opportunity and walked forward with a small grin still on his face. “Well, that was entertaining, but I think Michael and Geoff are both going to be more than a little upset if we return empty-handed. If you two are ready, we should head to the mine.” After confirmation from them, he once again took the lead, and they followed him to a dark opening in the ground. “Geoff suggested this area; hopefully we haven’t dug out everything here yet.” Unlit torches appeared in his hand, and he tossed them to Gavin. He pulled out more, which he gave to Erin. He then summoned his own stack. “This is all we’ve got. Use them sparingly.”

He turned and then disappeared into the dark cave, reappearing in a flash of light as he stuck a torch on the wall. Gavin went on ahead as well, catching up to Ryan in a couple bounds, but Erin followed somewhat slower. Once inside the cave, she stopped for a second, and pulled out the pickaxe Ryan had given her. She checked to make sure she could still see the others, then turned and stood there, staring at the wall. She honestly had no idea how this was supposed to work. Was she supposed to… maybe hold the pickaxe up to the wall and it would automatically mine, similar to just holding down the mouse button for the actual game? Or was she physically supposed to swing it and actually dig out the minerals? If so, she was in trouble; she was not in shape enough to actually mine materials for who-knows-how-many hours. She checked again; she could still see them. Good. She cautiously held the pickaxe up to the wall for a few seconds.

Nothing.

Great.

Accepting that it had to be the latter, she pulled back and swung the pickaxe, and it thudded into the wall, creating several cracks. She pulled it back again and swung. The wall now looked like it was about to break. Once more, she swung it, and the cube of stone broke, leaving cobblestone in its place. It soon disappeared into her inventory. After confirming that she was definitely going to be the one to take back the least amount of materials, she turned back to where Ryan and Gavin were, and her heart immediately started pounding.

They weren’t there.

She started walking forward cautiously, following the torches, increasing in speed when they continued to elude her, eventually breaking into a full-out run. Only when she zoomed around a corner and almost ran into Gavin did she stop, slightly out of breath. He gave her a confused look.

“Are you alright? Did you run into something?”

She honestly giggled a little inside, wanting to reply _Yeah, you_. She kept it to herself, though, partially because it was stupid and partially because she hadn’t actually run into him. So she settled for merely shaking her head. “No, I just lost sight of you guys for a minute, sorry.” Ryan suddenly appeared out of the shadows behind Gavin, scaring Erin half to death.

“I forgot to mention this earlier, but we are all sticking together for this. Nobody runs off on their own.” She honestly felt a little guilty at that; but then again, it was better than being the only person in the group who didn’t know how to mine.

“Sorry.”

Ryan turned from her and stuck a torch on the wall. “Nah, you’re fine, you didn’t know.” He continued walking into a huge cavern, Gavin somewhat close behind him. Erin followed them, looking at the ground.

And yet again, her mouth decided to say yet another brilliant statement.

“It’s because you have to keep an eye on me, isn’t it?” Gavin cringed, and glanced up at Ryan, who kept walking. Even she cringed at it; it was not something she had intended to actually say.

“Actually, you’re right. Yesterday and the day before, I was there because Michael and Geoff both agreed that somebody needed to keep an eye on you. Nobody knew whether to trust you or not, so they asked me to keep you busy. Today, though, it’s my own curiosity. It’s true that I’m still required to watch you, but I can’t say that’s the whole reason I’m doing it now.” His own curiosity? …Most likely from her being able to morph. That’d probably make anybody curious about a person, honestly.

Gavin looked nervously between him and her. “Ryan, are you sure you coul-” He was quickly shushed by a wave of Ryan’s hand.

“Look, if she’s already figured it out, why tell her she’s wrong?” He stopped and pointed up. “There. Gold.” Up near the top of the ceiling, three blocks of gold ore were nestled in a corner. Gavin immediately pulled out dirt.

“Got it!” He jogged up to the wall and began building up to it using the blocks in his hand.

Erin turned to Ryan. “Is that why he’s here, too? After yesterday, did you need two people watching me?”

Ryan shook his head. “Nah, he was just bored. And he wanted to know if you could fly.”

“Oh.”

Gavin jogged back to them, having collected the gold, and the trio moved on. Erin soon spotted some coal right at ground level. She pointed to it and looked up at Ryan.

“Coal?”

Gavin didn’t miss a beat. “Flynt Coal?”

Grins appeared on his and Ryan’s faces, and Ryan nodded. “Yeah, go ahead and get it.” She jogged over to it as Gavin ran over to mine a vein of iron the two had spotted. She swung the pickaxe three times again, and the coal block broke. As it disappeared into her inventory, though, her attention had been pulled to something else entirely. Behind the coal was apparently a cavern. She dug out the other one that blocked her way and stepped forward, now able to get a better view. It was a huge ravine, with water and lava flowing into it in various places, creating a great place at the bottom to get obsidian.

“Hey, guys! I found a ravine!” After looking around for another second, she turned to see if either of them were coming, and she involuntarily jumped back when she found Gavin right behind her. Unfortunately, she jumped back a little too far, and her foot slipped off the edge of the block. She tried to regain her balance, flailing her arms as Gavin quickly reached out to grab her, but he only caught air. Her heart raced as she plummeted downwards, towards the lava. Her wings flapped uselessly, and it _would_ be her luck that she’d end up turning around so she could actually _see_ the lava racing up towards her. If only her stupid wings would just-

_WHOOSH_

She stopped.

She felt the difference first, but she still had to turn her head to see if it was true. Her wings had somehow grown out, and they were huge. Consequently, they could now support her. She cautiously flapped a little harder, and she began to rise, until she reached the opening she had fallen out of. Gavin just stood there with his mouth hanging open, while Ryan stared- why did that stare have to be so harsh and _unnerving_ \- at her wings. She landed, and her wings retracted again.

“Woah… So you _can_ fly!” He turned to Ryan excitedly. “I knew it! I knew it, Ryan!” Ryan simply patted his shoulder, not taking his eyes off of Erin.

“Yeah, you did. How about we get away from the falling hazard?” Erin nodded hastily. She did not want a repeat of what had just happened.

“So,” Gavin began once they were away from the edge. “How’d you make your wings bigger?”

She absolutely hated the next three words she had to say: “I don’t know.” Ryan apparently didn’t like it much, either, as the look on his face was… Well, he looked very suspicious of her. But it was only for a second, so it was possible she imagined it. It was also possible she didn’t, though. “I honestly don’t. I was falling, and then my wings suddenly grew bigger and I could fly. All I did was flap my wings, but we all know from earlier that just flapping my wings does nothing.” As if to prove her point, she fluttered her wings a bit, and of course, nothing happened.

It made complete sense that the first one to come up with a theory would be Ryan. “Maybe it depends on the situation. After all, when you were trying to fly earlier, we were outside, close to the ground, completely safe. In here, just now, standing in the middle of the cave, there’s no danger from heights. But when you fell… Plenty of height-related danger there. It could’ve been that.”

Erin grimaced. “I’d really rather not test the whole danger bit again, in case it’s not that. What if I fell and then nothing happened?” She shook her head. “I really don’t wanna risk it.” Ryan shrugged.

“Eh, fine. Let’s get back to it, then.” He turned to her. “Did you see any good materials in the ravine?” She thought back, and was mildly surprised at her answer.

“No, actually… Just obsidian at the bottom.”

Ryan turned away at that and started towards the rest of the cavern. “Not worth it, then.” Erin shrugged and she and Gavin continued on as well. For a good while after that, mining was quite the bore; one of them finding some sort of ore was the most exciting thing that happened. It didn’t help that Erin didn’t quite know what to talk about, since she didn’t really _know_ the other two all that well. It was one thing to watch videos that they made in real life, but it was another entirely to meet some weird fantasy-persona version thing of them. So she couldn’t exactly tell them she was a fan of their videos or talk to them about games. She wasn’t even sure they knew what a video was, if this was some alternate universe or something.

Although there were a few interesting conversations, thanks to Gavin. But after the tenth “if you could have a million diamonds” question, she started to tune them out and let her thoughts wander. Wander to the fact that she still had no idea how she even got here. Wander to wondering about her wings. Wander to what it was like back home, if her brother was worried about her, if he was ok… Better not think about that, actually. Wander to wondering what the guys thought of her. Wander to the fact that there was a skeleton on a ledge somewhat high above them, getting ready to shoot at Ryan and Gavin. Wander to the iron that Ryan was min-

Wait, what?

She did a double-take, and saw that there was actually a skeleton, aiming for the two distracted men a few feet in front of her. Without really thinking, she pushed off the ground towards it. Her wings expanded, pushing her towards it faster and faster until she rammed into it, knocking its aim off so that it missed the two completely. The noise, however, had gotten their attention. She pulled out the sword that Ryan had given her yesterday, and swung, decapitating the skeleton, causing it to crumble to the ground and disappear. To her disappointment, it didn’t leave anything behind this time. She was at least hoping that it could maybe drop an arrow or something. Oh well. She hopped off the ledge and floated down to the ground, and her wings retracted again.

She didn’t even realize until after a moment passed and she noticed the looks she was getting from the other two what exactly had just happened.

“Ok, so…” Ryan started. “Obviously not based on height-related danger.”

Erin shrugged, suddenly feeling very embarrassed. She felt like she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing, though she didn’t know why. After all, she just saved one of the two from a skeleton. No reason to be embarrassed at all. But the feeling didn’t go away.

“Maybe it’s necessity?” Gavin ventured. “I mean, she needed the wings to save herself from the lava, and she needed the wings to fight the skeleton and get back down.” Erin considered it for a moment, and shrugged.

“Maybe. But I guess we’ll find out eventually.”

Gavin looked over at Ryan. “I think we have enough; we could go on outside and figure this out, then head back when we’re done. I don’t think Geoff and Michael would be upset if we didn’t get any more than this.” Ryan consented, and the trio headed to the surface. Once outside, however, they discovered it had already gotten dark, and they needed to head back. Erin glanced at the two men.

“Maybe tomorrow?”

Gavin grinned. “Or maybe on the way back? C’mon, try to fly to… that tree over there!”

Ryan didn’t say anything, just looked at her with that unnerving stare again, like he was the one who asked the question and was waiting for the answer.

Erin honestly wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t want to end up staying put, trying to figure out how to fly, but she didn’t want to be boring and walk the whole way-

…Y’know what?

Screw it.

She puffed her wings out and attempted to fly, but nothing happened. Gavin gestured to her, and they started walking, but she didn’t stop trying. She thought about what he had said earlier about necessity. Maybe it was her mindset. Maybe if she thought she needed them, they’d-

_WHOOSH_

…expand.

Gavin pumped his fist in the air and cheered. Ryan simply raised an eyebrow curiously.

She pushed off of the ground, and decided to have a little fun, flying around above the trees for few minutes, relishing the feeling of freedom flying gave her, before landing back down by Gavin and Ryan.

“Apparently it’s mindset.” She turned to the younger of the two men. “So you were basically right in that it’s based on necessity, but it’s when I think I need it. Even if I don’t actually need the wings, if I think I need them, they show up.”

“Cool!”

Erin was caught off guard as she felt a tug on her wings, and she looked over her shoulder to find Ryan poking and prodding and pulling at them, muttering to himself.

“Uh… Ryan?” No response. “Ryan!” He stopped, as if he suddenly realized what he was doing, and quickly stepped back.

“Sorry! Just… curious.”

There was an awkward pause, then Gavin glanced over at her.

“So… Do you think you could carry somebody?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yaaaay for awkward chapter endings! fortunately, i'm posting a ton of these at once, so you don't have to sit uncomfortably with an awkward ending while you wait for the next chapter. unless you want to sit there for a while, pondering over the awkwardness of the ending for a small eternity whilst you wait for the right time to move on. but that's up to you.


	5. five.

Erin woke up the next morning still feeling tired. It was honestly mostly worth it though; everybody’s laughter as she managed to drag Gavin through the air into the city and drop him, screaming, smack in the middle of the logo was the highlight of the day. Or night, whichever. He hadn’t been seriously hurt, and he himself laughed it off. But wow, was she sore.

So it was only _mostly_ worth it.

But mostly still counted for a lot, right?

Eh, sure.

She was not surprised at all to find Ryan waiting for her outside, performing baby-sitting duty once again.

As a matter of fact, he was outside the door waiting for her for the next several days. Each day they did something different, whether it was helping Geoff test game ideas over at AH Labs (don’t ask about the lava cannon idea), or helping Jack and Ray collect materials above ground (Ray scared her half to death and she almost turned into a zombie right then and there; THAT would have been more than slightly embarrassing), or even just generally patrolling the area with Michael. Awkward moments began to make themselves known less and less, and she might have even said the two were friends. But at the same time, she was still very cautious about what she said. It was extremely difficult to not talk to these guys like they were the Achievement Hunters that she knew of back home, the ones who played games for a living working at Rooster Teeth. These guys were… different. Still the same personalities, but just in an entirely different setting.

Which she didn’t mind, honestly.

She began to get comfortable, finding a sort of rhythm of waking up, going with Ryan wherever, doing whatever chore needed to be done to keep her busy, then returning at the end of the day, somewhat tired, but never exhausted. She honestly kinda felt like she made herself her own spot in the city, being a general helper. And she enjoyed it.

But there came a day when Ryan wasn’t the one waiting for her. It was Michael.

“Hey. So, I’m gonna keep this short and simple. We have these competitions for the crown to see who gets to be king. Whoever wins gets to decide chores and games and such for a week after they win, then they have to get ready for the next competition. Well, I won the last round, but it’s been over a week, and I’ve got everything finished and set up for this round. Now normally, Ryan would be here to watch over you, but we need everybody in on this one. Which basically means that you’re gonna be stuck sitting in one place all day. Sorry, but as much as we’d love to trust you to roam free and have access to everything that we own while we all play a game, we can’t. Not yet, anyway.”

Erin nodded. It did hurt a little, but she still understood. Hey, not everybody was as quick to trust as she was. Michael gestured to her to follow, and they began heading past his house, towards what she assumed was the Throne Room. Her assumptions proved to be right as they climbed over the wall into the courtyard. However, there was a new addition to it: a small room built into the hill overlooking the courtyard that had a small window, with a simple opening in the wall to get in. Michael continued walking, so she continued following, and they headed right into it.

“So, since we can’t give you free reign of the place, this is where you’re gonna have to stay while we get this settled. It sucks, I know, but it was a last-minute thing.” It actually wasn’t that bad; it seemed like whoever built it (probably Michael) tried to make it somewhat nice. There was a bed, wool floor, glowstone lighting, a chest which after investigation was revealed to have food in it, and there was even a small painting on the wall. Cozy, really. Although she did notice the wall and ceiling were made out of obsidian. Wood would’ve been better for the cozy factor. “Hey, gimme your pickaxe.”

Oh.

They definitely weren’t taking any chances. She pulled it out and gave it to him. “…Thanks. The floor under the wool’s obsidian, too, so. No digging out unless you wanna break your hand doing it.” She nodded, not really sure what else to do. Might as well sit on the bed. “So… yeah. Again, sorry, but… Not much choice here.” He backed out, then filled in the entrance with obsidian as well.

After staying put on the bed for several minutes, she decided it was too boring and made her way over to the window. She noted it was too small for her to crawl through. Or at least, if she didn’t have wings, she could probably make it. But she _did_ have wings, so she was unable to crawl out that way. Not that she particularly wanted to, though. She wanted to do everything in her power to show them she could be trusted, since there was no telling how long she’d be here.

Michael was already on the throne, and the others began to show up. Erin mentally prepared herself for what would no doubt be a long day.

As it turned out, she was right. After the first few games, it became very boring for a few reasons. One, she had already seen the video of King Michael, so she already knew how it would play out. Two, she couldn’t hear hardly anything; the guys were too far away and she didn’t have a headset for herself. Three, nobody really even acknowledged her, though she didn’t blame them since they were all competing against each other and couldn’t really afford distractions. So after a while, she decided to lie down on the bed and take a nap, and after a short while, she fell asleep listening to laughter drift across the courtyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i even went and ripped the episode off of youtube so i could have it without wifi for references. turns out i didn't even need to make any references to king michael except one. figures. yeah, yeah, short chapter. just keep reading, there's even shorter chapters up ahead, i promise.


	6. six.

The first thing she noticed when she woke up was the silence. She pushed herself up and peered out the window. It was bright outside still, so she couldn’t have slept for all that long. She crossed the small space and got closer to the opening in the wall so she could see better.

There was nobody in the courtyard. Anywhere.

She glanced at the row of towers to see that Ryan’s was fully built. So they were probably in Achievement City celebrating as Ryan put the tower up at his house.

Although half an hour later, she started to get a bit worried. They hadn’t forgotten about her, had they? …Maybe they had. People had a tendency to do that.

“Hello!” She fell back on the bed with a quick scream as Gavin’s face suddenly filled the window.

“Don’t _do_ that!” She found her hand was over her pounding heart, and her face flushed with embarrassment that he’d actually made her scream. Not many people managed to scare her that badly. Gavin laughed and disappeared, and she heard the tell-tale sound of mining. A couple seconds later, an opening appeared in the wall, revealing him standing there (still not quite done laughing) with a pickaxe in hand. She stood up and made her way over to him and crossed her arms.

“…So what took so long?”

 

 

 

She’d forgotten that during King Michael, a creeper blew up in Achievement City and set off Plan G. So they’d just been busy cleaning it up and fixing everything, when one of them realized she was still stuck at the throne room. Gavin had been sent to fetch her, as Ryan was busy, though she didn’t see him anywhere.

Then again, she didn’t have much time to look as she was soon pulled in to help rebuild as well. It took all day, too; it was evening by the time they finally finished. Nobody objected to turning in early, so they all went their respective ways, and Erin soon found herself lying on her, or rather, Kerry’s bed, unable to sleep. She was tired, yes, but her nap earlier was apparently late enough that her body still felt like it needed to be awake for a while longer.

…Man, she was bored. She had absolutely nothing to do but sit there, look at the room, or look around outside at the risk of being attacked. She decided to be a little adventurous and silently creeped up the ladder, then somehow managed to be deadly quiet as she opened the trap door and the door leading outside. Once there, she pulled out her sword to be safe, then sat down and looked up at the stars. Even though they were little squares in the sky with a square moon, it was still actually pretty to look at. She smiled as she remembered one of her friends talking about building a rocket to fly up into space and see as many stars as possible.

The smile faded as she realized how much she missed them. Missed her family. Missed her life.

After a good while, tiredness began to take its hold again. Erin quietly headed inside again, nearly having a heart attack when Michael shifted in his sleep. Fortunately, he didn’t wake up, and she made it downstairs without any incidents. She flopped down on the bed with a sigh.

It still took absolutely ages for her to fall asleep.

 

 

 

She was with one of her best friends. They had just seen a dance recital at the local high school, and went to a nearby restaurant afterwards. There they spent a couple hours just hanging out and having fun with a few others. Even though he was her ex, they remained great friends, and even now, she couldn’t help but still feel something for him. However, her parents were the ones who had convinced her to break off the relationship in the first place, so she couldn’t exactly ask him out. Judging by the way he acted around her, though, she suspected he felt the same way about her.

He seemed a little nervous tonight. She didn’t really think much of it; it was probably her imagination acting up again. She looked up at the clock and realized it was getting late; she needed to go home. After saying their good-byes, the two headed out of the restaurant and got into his car, and began to head home. The radio was on, she was full, it was late, and it had been a good day. She began to drift off as they pulled up to a stop light, and he slowed down in the left turn lane as he waited for a gap in the passing cars. She noticed a gap finally appear as the light turned yellow, and the car jerked forward. Apparently he didn’t want to wait for the traffic lights to make the rounds again.

He didn’t see the oncoming SUV that was barreling straight towards the intersection, also attempting to make it through before the light turned red. Her tiredness and calm quickly dissipated as time slowed down and her eyes grew wide with alarm as he turned the car, inadvertently exposing her side to the threat. They weren’t going to make it. The SUV didn’t slow down at all before it rammed into the passenger side.

 

 

 

She jerked awake with a gasp, blinking back tears as her heart pounded away in her chest. She sat there, shaking, trying to calm herself down. She thought, trying to remember her dream, figure out why she was terrified, but it fled her mind, not even leaving small wisps of memory behind as her dreams normally did. The fear was still there, though, and it was overwhelming. Her efforts to keep the tears in failed, and she curled into a ball as she began to cry.


	7. seven.

Erin rubbed her eyes groggily and squinted as she stepped outside into the bright sunlight. After a second, she realized there was no one outside.

Nobody was waiting on her.

A small smile grew on her face; they trusted her enough to not constantly watch her now. Sweet. …But now she had a problem. What should she do? With nobody to tell her the day’s plans, she was a little clueless.

Maybe she could just wander around for a bit. Familiarize herself with the place more. She set off past Gavin’s house into the snowy territory behind it, letting her thoughts take over again. This time, though, instead of wandering all over the place, they focused solely on her dream. It frustrated her to no end that she wasn’t able to remember it, not even a glimpse. Usually when this happened, just thinking about it for a while would bring up something. But after several minutes of walking around and trying to remember, she gave up. Maybe something would happen during the day that would remind her.

She heard a pig oink to her left, and she stopped, turning her head towards it.

Well, she had nothing else to do. Might as well hunt a bit. She pulled her bow and an arrow out and aimed at the pig, then fired. It squealed in alarm as the arrow made contact and ran around in a blind panic. It squealed again as another arrow hit it. On the third hit, it fell over and dissipated into nothing, leaving behind a pork chop. She smiled a little to herself as she picked it up. Her aim was getting better.

“So there you are.” She froze for a second, startled, then turned to find Ryan standing a few feet away from her.

Oh.

“Sorry I was late this morning, I was… working on something.”

Oops.

Erin felt her face heat up in embarrassment. She hadn’t been given free reign to roam around. And that’s exactly what she did. “I’m… ohmygosh I’m _so_ sorry, I didn’t mean to… I mean, you weren’t there, so I thought I could…” She was doing an excellent job of explaining herself. “Sorry.”

Ryan shook his head. “It’s fine. Just a misunderstanding.” He gestured to the pork she was holding. “Doing some hunting?”

She put it in her inventory and pulled her bow back out. “Well, I didn’t really know what else to do, so… Yeah.”

“Mind if I join you?”

Erin cracked a grin. “Don’t you have to?”

Ryan shrugged. “Fair enough.”

The clattering of a skeleton nearby caught their attention. Ryan started to head towards it, but Erin held out her hand to stop him. “Hold on, I wanna try something.” He shrugged and ducked behind the tree next to them while she did the same.

“So what exactly are you going to try while hiding behind a tree with me?”

“I wanna see if it’ll attack me.” She pulled up the mob list in her mind again, and picked the skeleton. Within a few seconds, she looked no different than the skeleton that was in the shade several feet from their tree. She stepped out sideways from behind it, or rather, tripped over Ryan’s foot and fell out from behind it. There was a second that she just laid there, completely caught off guard, and she glanced at Ryan. He was giving her that _stare_ again.

Then she was suddenly on fire, literally.

She tried to scream, but all that came out was clinks of bone against bone, and she frantically scrambled back into the shade she had fallen out of. The fire stopped immediately, much to her relief, and she collapsed up against the tree, a bit shaken up. She glared up at Ryan, who raised his hands innocently.

“I didn’t mean to trip you like that; I’m so sorry.” That apology sounded fake. She wanted to say something, anything to him to get her anger across, but she couldn’t speak like this. So she settled for just the glare.

Eventually, she turned to look at the skeleton to find that it was ignoring her completely, and she raised her bow and shot it. It recoiled and looked around for the source of the arrow, and, only seeing another skeleton around, shrugged and went back to doing nothing. Two shots later, it was gone, and Erin was somewhat cheered up by the fact that she had been able to hide from it in plain sight. She morphed back and stood up. “So thanks for almost killing me there.”

“Hey, I didn’t know you’d _happen_ to fall in the sunlight and get burned.”

She turned on him with a sly grin. “So you admit you did it purposely!”

He froze for a split second (or did she imagine that?), then smiled himself. “I might have purposely tripped you as a joke, yes.”

“Ryan, you can’t just hurt people for fun,” she jokingly said over her shoulder as she went to pick up the arrow the skeleton had left behind. No reply came. She turned to instead find Ryan taking aim at another pig that was passing by a short ways off. She silently watched as he let the arrow fly, hitting the pig square between the eyes, killing it instantly. Ryan smiled in satisfaction, and she didn’t blame him. She’d be proud of a shot like that, too. Then he glanced at her.

“Who says?” Her gaze turned from where the pig had been to where Ryan was, shocked concern on her face. A moment passed, and Ryan laughed. “I _am_ joking, you know.”

“Ohh, ok!” she laughed. “Good, ‘cause I was kinda worried there for a moment.”

“Your expression was worth it,” he said as his laugh faded away. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

The strategy Erin had used with the skeleton turned out to be fairly useful, as there were a lot of hostile mobs out and about for some reason. They returned that night with just as much bones and zombie flesh and gunpowder as they had meat, possibly more. After putting it in the storage, each headed their own way.

“Erin.” Maybe not. She turned back to Ryan, only to find him facing away from her, muttering to himself. After a moment, he shook his head and quietly mumbled something else.

“What?” It sounded like he’d said… ‘Not yet’? Not yet what? “Ryan, what’d you say?”

“…Nothing. Goodnight, Erin,” he said dismissively as he waved his hand, then headed towards his house.

Erin stood there for a moment, then slowly raised her arm to wave back before heading to Michael’s house for the night.

 

 

 

The routine returned for a few days, and everything seemed normal again, although now Ryan was the one assigning chores and games as opposed to Michael. He never seemed to complain about not participating in the games, though, apparently content with babysitting Erin. She didn’t really understand why, but she didn’t think much of it. She had the sort of mindset that nothing really bad would happen to her. She’d hear about things happening to other people back home, but that was other people. Not her. Even when things _could_ happen, like a tornado heading for their house, or a fire in their apartment complex, but nothing happened. The tornado would change course or the fire would die out before it reached their apartment. Things like that.

But reality seemed a little more real when Kerry came back at the end of the week. Everybody welcomed him home happily while Erin watched from a distance. They’d pulled her in to the group and introduced the two to each other, and he seemed nice enough and she was nice enough back. But she had been staying in his room; now she didn’t have anywhere to go. She’d expressed this worry to Michael, since she’d been staying in his house, and he’d brushed it off, saying she’d be fine and that Ryan had said he’d figure something out.

The rest of the day was uneasy as they helped Gavin build a future game, but it soon ended up being just her and Ryan building it; Geoff apparently needed Gavin’s help with something.

…Ryan seemed unusually happy. She asked him what was up, and he just said she’d find out soon. She’d asked him multiple times, trying to get some sort of hint, but that was all she got: she’d find out soon.

The sun began to set, and her nervousness grew all the more.

“Alright, I think we’ve made enough progress that Gavin can finish this tomorrow.” She nodded and prepared herself to… to what, she wasn’t sure. But she knew she wouldn’t be heading to Michael’s house tonight. Ryan took the lead on the way back, humming quietly. The sun was gone completely by the time they got back, and everyone had already headed to their homes for the night. When they reached the city, she nervously cleared her throat, getting Ryan’s attention.

“So, uh… Where am I gonna go?” Ryan gave her an ‘I-know-something-you-don’t’ look and waved for her to follow him. She obliged as they headed into his house, and she noticed he looked around behind them after they went inside. “Are you looking for someone?” He shut the door and shook his head, and pointed down into Edgar’s hole.

“There’s a secret down there I’ve been working on for a bit. Kept the entrance in the hole so nobody would really see it. Now that it’s not a secret, I’ll move the entrance soon.” He broke the glass, hopped down, and flicked a lever hidden under the floor. A block slid to the side, revealing a ladder leading down. “Come on; it’s where you’re going to be staying now.” Understanding dawned on her, and she jumped down happily and immediately began heading down the ladder, excitement slowly building. She’d have her own place to stay now. True, it was probably only because Kerry was back, but it was progress, right?

…But wow, this ladder was long. She finally reached the bottom, and turned to find another wall with a lever on it. A tug on it made pistons pull the wall apart, revealing a room behind it. She stepped through and surveyed the area. Didn’t look like much, honestly. Actually, it was pretty creepy. The room was set up to look like a dungeon. Iron bars that made a cell, a chain connected to the wall (she didn’t even know that was possible), redstone torches for lights, and obsidian walls. She stood there for a second, confused, and decided to head back upstairs and ask Ryan what kind of a joke this was; it was seriously creeping her out. Before she could turn around, though, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /gasp  
> drama!  
> oh no!  
> how will this ever work out? (sarcasm)  
> haha in all actuality i still don't know how i'm gonna end the overall story.


	8. eight.

Erin stirred with a groan. Dang, her head hurt. She instinctively rubbed it, then winced when it only made it worse. Her eyes opened to find herself on the floor of the dungeon-looking room, but this time she was on the other side of the bars. The iron door to the cell was shut. She started to push herself up to go to the door, but she was stopped by feeling an object on her ankle that did not belong there. She looked down to see that she was shackled to the wall, and panic started to rise. She got up anyways and tried to at least see if she could reach the door, but the chain stopped her a couple feet away from it. Slowly, she backed up against the wall, and slid down to a sitting position. She was in a state of disbelief. This was the kind of thing that she would never imagine actually happening, and even then, not to her. She’d always had such an optimistic view on everything; it never seemed like anything bad would happen to her. At least, not on this level.

Ryan. It had to have been Ryan. Part of her honestly didn’t want it to be him, partly because of how cliché it would be and partly because of the fact that he was the one person in the group she could say she was somewhat close to. She thought about it; trying to make sense of the sudden character change. But the more she thought about it, the less sudden it seemed. All those times he stared at her like he was studying her, trying to figure her out. Pulling and prodding at her wings. “Accidentally” dropping the healing potion on her as a zombie. Tripping her into the sunlight as a skeleton. Being late because he was working on “something”. She realized this was probably what he’d been working on. All that time he’d spent with her, watching her, learning about her abilities; he’d even _admitted_ he was curious about her on her third day! And he had just won the crown, too; it made sense. As stupid as it was, it made sense.

She leaned her head back up against the wall, staring at the ceiling. How was she supposed to get out of this?

The sound of pistons activating snapped her out of her thoughts, and she looked over to see the wall moving, creating an opening.

And of course, of _course_ the person to walk through would be Ryan, wearing that stupid crown. The stupid crown won in the stupid game that started this whole stupid mess. It was all stupid. All of it. She attempted to glare at him, but it didn’t quite work; her eyes quickly wandered to the ground. She had too gentle a personality and was too scared at the moment to really hold the glare. Ryan stopped in front of her, on the other side of the bars.

“I’m just going to say now that I’m not planning on hurting you. Really, I’m just curious about a few things. Mainly the same things that Michael asked you when you first showed up.” Erin glanced up at him. He didn’t look at all like she thought he would; no mad grin on his face or anything, just suspicion. That was not what she was expecting at all. Relief began to chase away fear. So they had all just decided after all to not trust her, then. As much as it hurt her feelings, at least she had been overthinking her situation and assumed it was worse than it actually was. “I’ll ask one question at a time. First, who exactly are you?”

“Erin Coleman. Unless you’re not asking for my name, in which case, I’m not sure what exactly you’re asking.”

“Alright, I’ll start with this then: where did you come from?”

Should she stick to her story of not knowing? She was a good actress; she knew that much. If she did well enough, she might be able to pull it off and convince him she really didn’t know. “I already told you guys, I don’t know. I just woke up several days ago and-”

“Then how did you know Geoff on day one when _Jack_ was the one who gave the crown to Michael? How did you know your way around Achievement City when nobody had shown you around before? How did you know the names of places that you shouldn’t have if you _didn’t have any memory_? Exactly _how much_ are you hiding?”

Crap.

“I…” No way out of this one. Except just… telling the truth. She sighed. “Alright, yeah, I did know who you guys were when I showed up. I knew my way around, even though I’d never been here before.” Ryan’s expression hardened. She returned the look. “I’ve never been here before,” she repeated. Ryan started to speak, and she cut him off. “I came from…” Good grief, how was she going to explain this? “From like… a… I’m not sure, honestly, but it’s a different world, I guess? Alternate universe, maybe? I’m not sure, but where I come from, you guys are all completely different.” Ryan raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. “Well, I mean, same personalities, but you’re still different. This,” she gestured all around, “this is all a game. You guys play it, yeah, but it’s all a giant video game.” Oops. She didn’t mean to include the word “video” there. Confusion flickered across his face.

“Video game?”

“It’s… electronic? Sort of like how stuff here is powered by redstone, that’s powered by something super similar called electricity.” He nodded slowly, trying to process it. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to explain it… but the fact remains that it’s just a game there.”

“So, where you come from… Does everybody have wings and the ability to shapeshift?”

Erin shook her head. “No.” Ryan looked almost disappointed. “This is… Uh… The game can be modified.” She gestured to her wings. “I used modifications when I played. That’s why I have these and I can morph.”

“How does it work?”

“I’m not sure, that’s all code and I don’t know anything about coding mods.”

There was that stare again. That stupid stare that should’ve warned her when she first saw it.

“You don’t even have an idea?”

“No. …Sorry.”

“…Hm. Well, alright then.” He reached over and flicked a lever, and the iron door opened up. Erin’s head perked up. That was fast. She didn’t expect to be released this quickly, but hey, at least she was getting out. This place was creepy.

“Honestly, if you just wanted to ask me questions, you probably could have asked me without the whole knocking-me-out-and-chaining-me-to-the-wall thing. I probably would’ve told you.” Well, eventually, anyways. But Ryan didn’t walk over to her and release her. Instead, he walked in, stopped in front of her, and cracked his knuckles. Her eyes widened as a grin appeared on his face.

“I guess plans have changed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha can you tell i have no idea how somebody who had never heard of electricity would react to learning about video games?
> 
> if you can't, it's a miracle.
> 
> then again, it's not exactly the focus of his questions, so.


	9. nine.

She felt immense relief. Finally, he was leaving.

He hadn’t been able to get the answers he wanted. Not by asking, anyways.

The pain throughout her body reminded her of what he did to find out himself. She didn’t even know how half the instruments he used were even possible to make, but then again, she didn’t know how the chain around her ankle had been made either. She took in a breath as the pain finally began to fade. She’d been given food, thankfully, so her health was regenerating and she was starting to feel better, but she was still about ready to pass out. …She actually probably had passed out a few times in the past several hours. She remembered being jarred awake more than once, waking up to excruciating pain.

As he walked out, he promised he’d be back. Her relief left with him. Tiredness took its place, and she closed her eyes.

 

 

She honestly wasn’t sure how much time had passed. There were no windows, no way for her to see the outside and tell the passage of time. All she knew was the routine of Ryan showing up, pressing her for information, and eventually leaving her with some food, unsatisfied. He never again asked about where she came from, how anything worked there. It was always something about her wings, something about her being able to morph.

He wanted to know how.

She didn’t know why, but he did.

Or at least, she thought he did.

The realization that she didn’t know scared her.

 

 

 

There was a time when he took the chain off. He was going to take her somewhere, apparently. But the chain was off. And the piston doorway to the basement was wide open.

She spread her wings fast, knocking him off guard.

Run!

Out the door, up the ladder, out of the hole and out of Ryan’s house.

It was dark outside. He wouldn’t be able to see her as easily. Good.

Fly!

Fly now! Gogo **go!**

Behind the house, around Geoff’s house, up, up, up, all the way to the top. She collapsed, breathing hard, on the roof.

Alright. Gotta keep going.

She peeked over the edge; nobody was down there. Good.

…Where to go? Left? Right? Straight? Back? …Left. Left was away from Ryan’s house.

She turned and started running for the edge, then jumped and spread her wings, heading for-

A hand wrapped around her ankle, jerking her backwards.

No!

Fight it! She was able to carry someone before, she could still fight it!

…No. She was too weak; he yanked her back down on the roof. She yelped in alarm, but it was cut off as he quickly covered her mouth. Her eyes closed in defeat as Ryan easily picked her up, muttering something about being lucky Geoff still trusted him and let him fly. He said she could thank him for making it possible to catch her so quickly. He hopped off of the roof, stopping their fall several feet above the ground, then touched down and strolled inside.

Back in the cell.

Back to square one.

 

 

 

A new room. A small room next to her cell. Made of… what was it called again? O… Obsidian. Obsidian, that’s what it was. She never saw anyone go in or out of it. Or at least, she didn’t think she did.

Maybe she had, and she’d forgotten.

Ryan had stopped messing with her wings, and focused on her morphing almost entirely. Trying to figure out for himself how it worked.

…She thought she heard a voice, once. A voice from the new room. The small room made of purple stone.

Obsidian. It was called obsidian.

The voice sounded familiar. It might have called out for help, but she wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not. Her imagination liked to play tricks on her.

Wait.

There it was again.

Calling out for Ryan, pleading. Pleading… what? To be let go, maybe? Probably.

He wouldn’t let it go, though.

She knew he wouldn’t.

 

 

 

He seemed happy.

Something worked.

Maybe.

The man didn’t stop, though.

Still trying different things, different…

Different.

Different what?

…

The voice called out again.

What did it say?

…She didn’t know.

Didn’t…

She…

 

…What?

…

 

Nothing.

 

 

 

“Okay, are we ready to do this?”

“Even if we aren’t, there’s no better time to.”

“It was rhetorical, Kerry. You’re supposed to just nod.”

“No sign of Ryan anywhere.”

“Aright, let’s bust ‘im out.”

…

“Jack, is he in there?”

“…No, it’s… Holy-”

“It’s her.”

“She’s still here?! He said she’d left! If she’s been down here this whole time, then…”

…

“I’ll get her.”

“Can you get the chain off, Michael?”

…

“…No. You got a diamond sword I can use to break it?”

“Yeah. Here you go, bud.”

“Thanks.”

…

“…How’s the view, Gavin?”

“Still no sign of him.”

“Good. Ray’s gotta be in there.”

“Need a pickaxe?”

“I got one, thanks.”

…

“…Huh? Geoff?”

“Shh! We’re getting you out of here!”

“’Bout time.”

“Good to see you too.”

…

“Everybody good? Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> told ya there'd be shorter chapters.


	10. ten.

Bright.

Too bright; she couldn’t sleep.

Eyes opened to see a different setting than they were used to seeing: plain stone walls instead of iron bars and obsidian, glowstone instead of redstone torches, an actual bed instead of a hard floor, a wooden door instead of an iron one.

The chain was still on her ankle, though, but broken.

Why?

 

 

The door opened, and the room’s occupant swung their attention to the newcomer. He seemed happy she was awake, as he began to make his way over to her quickly. He stopped, though, as she backed up against the wall as far as she could, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes, wings puffed out in alarm. Concern took over, and he raised his hands to show he didn’t mean any harm, but it was apparently the wrong move to make; she flinched away and braced herself.

This was going to be difficult, he could tell. His hands slowly lowered, and he attempted to give comforting words instead, but it admittedly wasn’t his strong suit. He did notice, though, that when he started talking, she peeked her head up at him.

Good. Progress.

 

 

The voice.

It was the voice.

Maybe.

He looked familiar.

He wasn’t the man who came and brought pain with him.

Somebody else.

Dressed in black.

Black.

She’d seen it before.

Seen it…

Where?

Where what?

Black.

Where had she seen the black?

…She didn’t know.

 

 

He didn’t know what to do. She just sat there, staring at him. After a moment, he tried to speak again. Nothing new; she just kept staring.

He’d known it’d been bad for her from day one, when he stumbled on the place Ryan had her. She had been sitting there, chained to the wall, just staring off into the distance with cold, dead eyes. When he stood in front of her, she didn’t even seem to see him. He had reached up to turn on his headset and tell the others he found her, she was apparently still here; but his hand never made it.

When he had come to, he was in a predicament similar to how he knew she had been in during King Michael: inside an obsidian room with a small window he couldn’t fit through. But he didn’t have anything else except the four walls and food he was given through the window.

His headset was gone. No way to contact the others. He didn’t know for sure who exactly shut them up down there, but his guess was proved right when Ryan walked in the next morning. He… hadn’t been the same since he’d won the crown, particularly after Kerry came back and she’d disappeared. Ryan claimed he didn’t know anything about it, he’d just turned around while they were building and she was gone. Michael mentioned her being nervous about not having somewhere to stay, and Ryan confirmed she’d been on edge all day up until she vanished. But something was off about him. He seemed entirely too happy she was gone. He was the one who spent the most time with her; shouldn’t he be the one who was worried most? But if anything, he was worried the least; he instead fell into an enjoyment of ordering the others around. Even after the week had passed, and he wasn’t exactly in charge any more, he still wore the crown and gave orders here and there. They assumed it was all a joke and played along with it, but they had started to talk amongst themselves. What if it wasn’t a joke?

If anything, that had proved it wasn’t.

Attempts to bargain for freedom failed; Ryan had decided to keep him there as incentive for the others. He was actually treated fairly decently, to his surprise, seeing how she was treated.

It explained fairly well how she was acting now. He pulled out some bread, and slowly extended it to her. After an awkward pause, she reached out and took it. It was gone in less than a minute. He thought maybe after she’d eaten, after she’d seen that he was no threat to her, maybe she’d be a little more receptive. But his guess was proven wrong as she didn’t move, still staring at him.

Like she was waiting.

For what, he didn’t have a clue.

He decided to come back later; she was fine, or at least seemed to be, considering what had happened, and that was all he needed to know.

 

 

The voice was leaving.

She wanted it to stay.

Him.

She wanted him to stay.

But it -he- was gone.

She remembered.

She remembered seeing black crumpled on the floor, the man above him.

The man who…

The…

…

What?

Thoughts.

Think.

Remember.

Remember voices, multiple voices.

Hushed voices.

Urgent whispers.

Carried, quickly, quickly-!

Nothing.

…

The chain was still there.

It rattled whenever she moved her foot.

But she could move her foot.

That was important, right?

Right?

…Wasn’t it?

…

Get up.

No.

Get up.

No!

Come on, get up.

…Fine.

Too weak.

Can’t stand.

Back down.

Just… wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look this one's even shorter. wheeeeeeee


	11. eleven.

Trial and error, that’s what it was. Tons of trial and error. They finally figured out who she could trust. For some reason, it was Michael and him. Not Geoff, who was warm and fatherly, not caring Jack, not even Gavin, who figured out she could fly, but it was the one she had been stuck in a prison with and never seen there, and the one who first found her and didn’t see her but maybe three times afterwards.

It became almost a routine, really. He and Michael would alternate meals, going in and giving her food. If anyone else tried, she wouldn’t eat it. She’d just cower away, eyes closed, shaking, and if it was Jack, she’d near hyperventilate. If it was him, though, she’d take it, staring at him again. If it was Michael, she’d apparently grin a little when she took the food. That was what Michael had said, anyway.

He knocked on the door to her room and pushed the door open, a bowl of steaming stew in his hand. She perked up, and began staring again from the bed as he walked forward and held the stew out towards her. She reached out for the bowl quickly.

“Careful, it’s hot.” She paused, then took it anyway, setting it down beside her, and continued to stare at him. He raised an eyebrow. That was different. “You uh… You need something?” She shut her eyes tight, and there was a long pause. He’d about decided that she wasn’t going to respond when she finally opened her mouth. But nothing came out. Was she trying to speak? “I uh…” She eventually just tugged on his sleeve. Not knowing what else to do, he extended his hand towards her, and she grabbed his arm and yanked on it. “Hey-!” He stopped himself from falling, barely, and pulled back. After a moment, he realized what she was doing. She was trying to pull herself up. “Here.” He moved his arm to a better position for her to get a grip on, and he pulled her to her feet. One of her hands moved to his shoulder, and she stared at her feet as her legs wobbled. “C’mon, you can do it.” He stepped forward, and she shakily did the same. When she didn’t fall, a small smile began spreading across her face.

 

 

Walking.

She was walking.

She could walk.

Good.

Very good.

She froze as the voice said something else, something…

What did he say?

Something about…

Going…

Outside?

Going outside the door?

No.

No, there were more people out there.

More…

But…

He was out there.

With the messy hair.

The reddish messy hair.

She knew him.

What was the word?

B…

Br…

Br-something.

Yeah.

Br-something.

…But they were out there, too.

 _He_ was out there.

He sounded like the man.

Maybe he _was_ the man.

She couldn’t trust him.

No.

No, she couldn’t go.

No no no no nonono _nono **no!**_

She wouldn’t go!

 

 

“Woah, hey, calm down!” She had begun trembling uncontrollably, wildly shaking her head back and forth. Ok, so she wasn’t ready to leave the room yet. But she could walk. With some help, at least. He turned them back towards the bed. “It’s okay, you don’t have to leave. You’re fine. We’ll just… go back to the bed, okay?” They walked back slowly, and she sat down on the bed, almost spilling the stew. He picked it up and handed it to her again. “Here.” She took it, and cautiously began sipping it. “Alright, I’m just… gonna go now.” She kept drinking the stew. “…Right.” He turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make a comment about how shorts are comfy and easy to wear, but then i realized that if i was a reader of this fic, i wouldn't have been able to make the connection between the quote and the fact that the chapter is only like 600 words, so i decided to not make it really awkward for you, the actual reader. i probably did anyways by telling you about it.


	12. twelve.

It had been several weeks now.

She was…

Sure.

She was sure of it.

It was hard to get her thoughts to work.

Cooperate.

Make sense.

They were scrambled.

Scrambled…

Eggs.

She hadn’t had scrambled eggs in ages.

The door opened.

The voice was here.

But he had a name.

His name was…

Was…

Crud.

She didn’t remember.

“Hey, it’s time to eat, Erin.”

Erin.

Her name was Erin.

She’d finally really _learned_ that…

How long ago?

A few days, she guessed.

She nodded and stood up.

Lately, she’d been able to eat outside without being scared.

Outside with them.

With him.

With the messy reddish hair.

She had finally remembered the word.

The word for how she knew him.

Brother.

 

 

 

She’d grown comfortable over the past week, and she felt a lot better.

Not nearly as stressed as she had been.

But it was still difficult to remember things.

And get her thoughts in order.

But only sometimes.

She’d tried staying outside of her room more, but…

There was nothing to do, really.

They were all waiting, she supposed.

No, no they weren’t.

They were planning.

Trying to come up with ideas to go against the man.

He had a name, too; but she couldn’t think of that, either.

It was frustrating; she couldn’t remember anything.

Well, some things.

Like Voice’s name.

And Brother’s name.

And who exactly she was.

It was _very_ frustrating.

 

 

 

She’d finally learned where they were: they were up at the top of the-man-in-the-green-armor’s house, hiding right in the city.

Achievement City.

She was honestly a bit proud that she finally remembered the name of something because names, for some reason, liked to elude her. Even when she’d heard the names, several times, her mind would fail to connect the name and the person or the place.

It just didn’t like to cooperate.

Neither did speech. She couldn’t talk, and she didn’t know why. She’d tried, multiple times, but she’d so far been unsuccessful.

Her voice just…

Wouldn’t work.

Add it to the list of frustrations.

So she just sat there, quietly, listening, as the other three talked about plans. Sounded like they were going to rescue somebody.

There were only four because two of them had gone out. They’d decided it was a good idea to build safe houses all over, apparently. So those two were occupied with that. It was… The one in green, with the dirty blonde hair, and the older man with ginger hair who sounded like…

Sounded like…

Nothing. Still couldn’t remember.

But she was secretly glad he had been one of the two. He sounded so similar to the man. It made her really nervous to be around him. But he wasn’t here at the moment, so she could relax.

…

But she had nothing to do.

After listening to them talk a while longer, she finally got up.

Might as well go to bed; it was late enough anyways.

A small chorus of ‘goodnight’s reached her ears and she waved over her shoulder as she headed to her room.

 

 

 

The days absolutely dragged by, but Erin somehow got through it without dying of boredom. She still couldn’t talk, so the only thing she could do was sit and listen to conversation. They apparently had 5 “safety houses” scattered across Achievement City, hidden all over the place. It was “just in case” they needed them when they rescued the other person. She felt kinda bad when she had realized a few days prior that she’d forgotten about the sandy-haired kid that showed up right before she… Well. Before everything went downhill. She really didn’t want to think about that or about _him_. He was the one guy she really trusted and thought trusted her, but it turned out he was playing her all along and she was completely oblivious.

Figures.

But the rest of them, they really seemed genuine. After all, they really took care of her. They didn’t just watch over her, but actually made sure she was okay. Ray and-

Wait.

Ray.

Ray!

She remembered his name! She actually remembered the name that went with his face! Okay, so there was Ray and… Ray and… Come on, come on! What were the others’ names? Alright, start with the one that looked like her brother. She’d learned a little while ago that, while he and her brother did look alike, he was not actually her brother. That was a disappointing day.

Her thoughts were wandering again.

She shook her head and tried to focus again. His name. What was his name? It was… M. Mi…tch. Mitchell. No, no, that wasn’t it. That was…

That was her brother’s name.

Her brother, who was always there for her to talk to, who taught her how to ride a bike and helped with her homework and helped her learn to drive because their parents were too busy to take the time for her. Her brother, who covered up for her whenever she messed up, who got her away from her suicidal thoughts when she was depressed, who stopped her from hurting herself, who protected her, who encouraged her, who was probably the one who was actually worried sick about her because he was the only one who really _loved_ her.

Mitchell.

Mitch.

She found a huge smile had spread over her face, so when not-Mitchell opened the door to her room, she was just sitting there grinning like an idiot.

“Hey, din- What’s got you so happy?” He glanced around, and, not seeing anything different about the place, shook his head. “Dinner. C’mon.”

Mitchell.

Mitchell…

 

Michael.

 

 

 

The day she finally made a sound was a big day; for multiple reasons. One, which was the most obvious, was that she managed to actually get her voice to cooperate somewhat. True, it only came out sounding like some weird groan, but it was something, right? It made the others happy; it was nice to have something good happen, since they’d been in hiding for the last several weeks. They’d apparently been waiting to see when she was ready to move, since they’d probably need everybody in top condition to get Kerry back.

She’d learned recently that when they’d saved Ray and her, Ryan had showed up, confronted them, and managed to grab Kerry before disappearing. She honestly felt a bit guilty for that; Kerry had been a part of their crew for much longer than she’d been there, but they ended up losing him and getting her instead. Then again, they got Ray back, too, but on the other hand, if she hadn’t have been dumb enough to fall for Ryan’s scheme in the first place, none of this would have happened.

So she sat in the main room with the others, rescued, but guilt-ridden. It was the guilt that pushed her, really, to make some sort of progress with her speech. While the other five in the room talked about nothing, she opened her mouth to try to speak. Nobody even noticed until a short while later, when she succeeded in making a noise.

“Uu-ah-hh.” All activity in the room stopped at that moment, when everybody turned and looked at her. She was slightly embarrassed at the attention, but everybody immediately started cheering and generally being happy that she’d finally said something, even if it was unintelligible.

For the next several hours, she was the center of attention as they kept trying to get her to say specific words. None of it really worked, though. She could get out some sounds, and by the end of those several hours, she’d been able to sort of say names. Michael was “Mi,” Ray was “Re,” (Ray appeared irritated that she couldn’t say his name right, but they all could tell he thought it was funny), Jack was “Ja,” Geoff was “Ef,” (which had plenty of jokes made about it), and Gavin was simply “In.”

When they started to head off to bed, Erin was much happier than she had been for a while now. She pushed aside irritation that she still couldn’t talk right and instead focused on what she _could_ say, and that seemed to do the trick. The group said their ‘goodnight’s to each other and headed towards their rooms, and it seemed that things were starting to look up.

“Found you.” Six heads whipped around to find Ryan standing in front of a hole in the wall, having gotten up by way of the ladder on the back of the house.

That was the other reason it was a big day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest. It's a pretty awkward chapter. Well, ok, maybe not awkward. More like a struggle to get through. Like walking through molasses (if that's how you even spell it). But don't worry, the ramblings of a recovering mind should cease to be just ramblings relatively soon and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. Still not written that yet though so I mean I guess I'll find out then. But yeah, it's getting to the point where I'm getting tired of writing this broken sort of narrative. Mainly because when I started to write this story as a whole it was because of like two scenes specifically that I wanted to write and I'm getting closer to one of the scenes. Guess I'm just getting impatient. Oh well. I'll get there eventually.


	13. thirteen.

Nobody moved. Everyone stayed there, frozen in place, is if waiting for someone to take the first step.

The first to move was Ryan, who pulled out something she couldn’t see and threw it down. Smoke immediately spewed from the spot, shrouding the room, and everybody burst into action. It was so sudden that Erin wouldn’t have known what to do in the chaos if somebody hadn’t grabbed her arm and pulled her away. The small space felt so much more crowded for some reason. When she glanced around, she realized why.

There were multiple Ryans scattered around, engaging the other Achievement Hunters. Clones. And from the look of things, nobody could figure out which one was the real one.

Wait.

There was Jack, there was… Gavin.

Geoff was over there, and…

There! Michael and-

And Ray.

So who-?

Her attention swung to her front to see the big hand wrapped around her arm. The blond hair. The black tux. The kilt. The crown.

He was taking her back.

 _He_ was taking her **back!**

Crapcrapcrap she needed to get away. _Now_. She just recovered enough to start speaking again and he was here, dragging her back to the place she’d been trying to forget about. She tried pulling back, breaking free, but all she got was another jerk forward, towards the exit, towards imprisonment, and she was trying _so hard_ to at least dig her feet in the ground, slow him down, but it wasn’t working and-

“ **Erin!** ”

An arrow suddenly protruded from Ryan’s shoulder, and he let go of her as his arm spasmed for a second. Another hand took her arm, but this one was more caring, gentle.

“We need to get you out of here.” Ryan? No. No, Ryan didn’t have ginger hair. Jack. Her heart began to calm down as the two took off towards the exit, and with it came a clearer mind. Geoff had mentioned earlier that he had disabled Ryan’s flying, so instead of jumping down into the water like Jack, she spread her wings and flew. If Ryan got out, he wouldn’t be able to get to her. She stayed air loft as she glided down to where Jack had climbed out of the water. She glanced back up at the hole in the side of the building to see if the others followed them out. Before anyone appeared, though, Jack called her attention. “We need to get moving. The nearest house is over by Thread the Needle.” He was by the water’s edge, opening a chest that was buried under the sand. A few seconds later, the chest was re-buried and in the water was a boat, which he climbed into. “You can fly there, right?” She nodded. “Good. Follow me.” He turned and began guiding the boat east, and she flew after him, glancing back again. The beach was empty, and she could still hear the shouts coming from the top of the building.

She hoped the rest made it out alright.

 

 

 

“-else get out? …Yeah. …Hey, Michael.” As Jack talked on his headset, Erin looked around the underground house. Wasn’t much; just one room with a smaller room on either side. There was a large chest, a crafting table, a couple furnaces, stairs with carpet on them to serve as seats, and a lever on the wall. She poked her head into the other rooms to find them both the same: there was just a bed with a block next to it as a nightstand and a small chest.

“Each house is exactly the same; they’re for two people.” She turned to find Jack behind her. He gestured at her. “I need to show something to you.” She trailed behind him to a corner of the main room. He reached down and broke the wooden block at his feet, revealing a command block underneath. “This’ll teleport you to one of the other houses. You just need to put a pressure plate on it first.” Then he pointed to the lever. “That’s for emergencies. Pull that, and if you teleport, it’ll set off TNT so nobody can follow you.” He covered the command block again. “I just finished talking to Geoff; apparently everybody got away to the houses.” She tilted her head, confused. Using the headsets was super risky; Ryan could hear their conversations and possibly figure out where they were. Jack seemed to know what she meant as he said, “Gavin apparently managed to grab Ryan’s headset so we can talk over them without worrying now.” He paused for a moment. “…They also found out… what exactly he wants.” She looked up at him, curious. Honestly, he could’ve wanted any number of things. Revenge for busting Ray and her out, murder spree (but she really thought that was a bit _too_ dark), or simply control over the others.

“He wants _you_.”

She froze, staring at him with wide eyes. “Or at least… something you have. That’s all they were able to get from him before he left.” She wanted to say something funny, be sarcastic, brush it off, but aside from the fact that she couldn’t hardly speak in the first place, she couldn’t even get her mind to focus properly. Memories of what had happened to her in that cell flashed through her mind, obscuring anything and everything else, and she didn’t even realize until Jack shook her back to the present that she was crying. “-re ok! You’re fine! Nobody else is here but me. Nobody’s going to hurt you!” She shakily reached up and wiped her eyes as she nodded to show she’d heard him. He was right; Ryan wasn’t here, it was just her and Jack. Ryan was… probably miles away, and had no clue where she was. She took a few deep breaths, and she began to calm down.

“…Why don’t we both get some rest? It’s been kind of a long day.” She gave an affirmative nod and slowly headed to one of the rooms, and after a moment, Jack headed to the other. She stood there, collecting her thoughts and calming herself down. When she was able to breathe evenly again, she realized just how tired she was. Going to bed _was_ a good idea.

She was out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

 

 

 

The safe houses, she discovered, were just as boring as Geoff’s house was. Actually, no; it was probably even moreso, since instead of five other people in the house, it was just one. And it didn’t help that she couldn’t talk, other than simple words like “I” and “a” and “to” and “in,” but those didn’t hardly count.

She supposed she couldn’t really complain, though. They had food and a place to sleep and they were safe. Which was more than she could say for what her predicament would have been if Jack hadn’t gotten her away from Ryan. Panic started to rise in her chest whenever she thought about that though, so she quickly tried to change the subject of her thoughts. She decided to focus instead on what was about to happen.

She’d been with Jack for a week, now, and apparently they were going to rotate who had her every week. The others had decided that it would be better if she wasn’t in one place for too long; it was better to keep moving. She was actually relieved she wasn’t going to be with Jack the whole time (the whole time of _what_ she wasn’t really sure), but she kept that a secret. He was great, polite and caring and all, but the change would still be very much appreciated.

She watched from a few feet away as Jack broke the wooden block in the corner and placed down a pressure plate on the command block. “Alright, there you go. See you later, right?” She smiled a little, nodded, and then stepped down on the plate. She wasn’t sure what to expect when she hit it, as she’d never been teleported before. Maybe the feeling of free-falling for a second or flying or something. She wasn’t expecting to just blink and be standing in the middle of another house.

It was almost more disorienting than the free-falling.

“Oh. Guess I’m next in the rotation.” She turned to find Michael behind her. She managed to hold down the grin that wanted to make its way across her face. Maybe this week wasn’t going to be so bad. True, she couldn’t talk, so it’d probably be really awkward, but she really liked being around him; he’d always been her favorite of the AH guys. She blamed it on the fact that he reminded her of her brother so much. She finally showed a small grin as she shrugged.

Things were looking up.

 

 

 

The past couple days hadn’t been as awkward as Erin thought it’d be. Michael made a bit of an effort to talk to her, and she made efforts to talk to him, though she didn’t get much out. He’d come up with an idea, though, that let them have actual conversations. He crafted a book and quill, letting her write her thoughts down and get them across to him that way. So in their spare time, which they had quite a lot of, she thought of games they could play. They were mostly mind games, where you had to figure out the pattern of how the game worked to win it, but he seemed to at least tolerate it well enough; he couldn’t think of much else to pass the time. She had to admit, though, having to write everything down did take some of the fun out of it.

But it was better than not being able to communicate at all.

And the communication issue was what led to her current actions: lying on her bed attempting to speak while waiting for sleep to take over. She didn’t know what to try to say, but she eventually decided it would be funny to reference a movie she’d recalled watching with her brother. Although she began to realize after a few tries that if she couldn’t even say “I would like” she couldn’t complete the phrase, much less with an accent. So she gave up on asking for a hamburger and instead settled on trying to say “hello”.

She didn’t even get the first syllable out before sleep hit.

 

 

Eyes opened to an all-too-familiar setting. Hard, obsidian flooring, redstone torches, iron bars. They looked around wildly, widening more at each second. Disbelief and fear welled up, and with them came tears. It doubled when pistons sounded and a blonde figure made their way into the room.

“Glad to have you back.”

A single scream resounded through the chamber.

 

 

The scream jolted Michael awake, and he ran into the other room, not knowing what to expect, but preparing himself for the worst. What he found, however, was not the worst. Erin was in bed, still asleep, but shaking and crying and moving all over the place. He flinched back and covered his ears as she let out another scream.

“Hey! Erin! Wake up!” He ran over and shook her, and she jerked awake, gasping loudly. Her eyes darted across the room, looking across every inch of it, but it seemed like she was seeing something else entirely. “Erin! Erin, look at me!” He grabbed her shoulders and she tried to flinch back, but he kept a strong grip. She eventually managed to look at him, not looking past him but really looking _at_ him, and she froze.

“M… it…?”

What? He paused, not sure what to do. “Mi-t!” She burst into fresh tears and leaped at him, hugging tightly, and he stiffened, completely lost.

“I… uh-”

“M-it… ch…” He stared down at her as she sobbed into his chest. Did she just call him Mitch?

It was… close enough, he guessed. He slowly reached down and after a few indecisive seconds, settled for rubbing her back awkwardly.

“Uh… Yeah. Mitch is… Mitch is here. You’re ok… alright? You’re good. I’ve got you.” She started to calm down, and her grip slowly loosened up. “You’re safe… You’re safe.” He stayed like that, rubbing her back and consoling her until he realized her grip was completely slack, and she’d gone silent. “…Erin?” He tilted his head down to see her face, and was surprised to find that her eyes were closed and she looked… peaceful.

She’d fallen asleep again leaning up against him. He couldn’t help but crack a small smile at it, and he lowered her back onto the bed carefully. She settled into the bed and sighed deeply as he pulled the covers over her. He stayed in her room for a little while after, making sure she was actually alright, before quietly walking out and shutting the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you have no idea what reference she's making, look up "pink panther i would like to buy a hamburger". it's admittedly one of my favorite scenes in the movie.  
> also can you tell idk how to write michael /awkward laughter  
> also if her freezing up and completely freaking out about ryan bothers you, well, it kinda bothers me too.  
> edit (4/15/15): welp. it bothered me too much and i took one of em out. made it so she p much felt super helpless instead of completely losing it. i feel a lot better about this chapter now.


	14. fourteen.

Thunder rolled in the distance as Erin sat on her bed, practicing while Michael was in the other room, joking and laughing loudly with the others over the headsets. She was excited about today; she was going to repay Michael for what he did a couple nights back. She really didn’t remember much of it, just that she had a nightmare and he was there for her. She thought she’d called him Mitch, but hopefully that hadn't happened. If it did, it might be _kinda_ embarrassing.

But she still needed to thank him for it, so here she was, getting ready to show him something she’d been working on since then. Or rather, tell him. Hopefully. If she could just…

“M-ich…ll.”

She couldn’t quite get it right. And she didn’t want to do it at all for him if it wasn’t right.

So she kept trying.

“Mmich-el.”

So close. _So_ close.

“M-ich-ael.”

Her face lit up, and she bounced excitedly on the bed.

“Mi-ch-ae-l.”

The choppiness was barely excusable, but she was finally actually saying ‘Michael’. She was _actually saying a complete word_. She hopped up and ran to the other bedroom where he was.

“-been quiet. Haven’t seen or heard any sign of him; we’re still good. …Yeah. Nothing. …I don’t know, we’ll figure it out tomorrow. Gonna switch then anyways. …Yeah… G’night.” He switched it off and set it on the block next to his bed, then held his hand up to stop her from doing anything. “Hold up, I gotta do something real quick.” He stood up and made his way past her into the main room, and began rummaging around in a chest. She rocked back and forth on her heels, waiting impatiently. Just a few more sec-

Wait.

What was that noise?

She walked quietly over to Michael and tapped his shoulder.

“Just wait a couple seconds, I gotta-” She tapped again, more urgently. He paused and turned towards her. “Alright, what?” She pointed to her ears, then the ceiling. He went quiet, listening as well, and both pairs of eyes widened when they realized it was the sound of dirt blocks being broken. Michael slammed the chest shut and ran to the corner, broke the wood covering the command block and threw a pressure plate down on it, then flipped the lever on the wall. When she realized what he was doing, she quickly followed after him. Fear shot through her as she heard the ceiling break and a thud behind her, and the fear was realized when, not even a second later, she was pulled backwards by her hair.

“M-i-!”

“Well, I’m _lucky_ someone happens to talk loudly, aren’t I? Thank you for telling me where you were.” Ryan’s voice echoed through the room, and Michael’s sword instantly appeared in his hand. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Michael.” Erin gasped and shut her eyes tight as she felt something sharp graze her neck.

Michael wouldn’t be able to move.

Ryan would be able to get away.

With her.

Back to the cell.

No, no, _no, **not again!**_ She _couldn’t_ go back there, not a second time!

Memories of constant pain and torture from tests and experiments flooded her mind, and her head swam and her heart pounded so _loudly_ in her chest and she felt so, _so_ weak. It was just _too_ much, she couldn’t handle it again, not _again_.

 

 

He should’ve grabbed her arm when he’d run over to the command block. But he didn’t, and now Ryan had her not five feet from him, holding up a sword to her neck. Her legs shook, tears were running down her face, and she was breathing fast, as if she was about to hyperventilate. And it made him _so_ _angry_ that he couldn’t do anything about it.

If he could at _least_ distract him somehow, maybe she’d be able to get out. Michael couldn’t let him take anybody else, and particularly not her. He needed something, and apparently whatever it was, she had it; so logic said to keep her away from him. At all costs.

“Headset. Where’s your headset?” He lowered his sword for a moment, caught off guard.

“It’s… in my room.”

“Go get it.”

He tensed. “And leave her alone with you? No, I’m not-” He was cut off as Ryan pressed the sword to Erin’s skin and she whimpered.

“Get it.”

Michael hesitated, then put his sword away and held up his hands, at a complete loss as to what to do other than what Ryan wanted. He backed out of the room, not wanting to take his eyes off of them, not wanting to leave and come back only to find them both gone. But after he’d grabbed the headset and re-entered the room, they were both still there. Ryan held out his hand that had his sword in it, and the sword disappeared, leaving an open and waiting palm. But he still had her by the hair. If he could just…

Break his hold on her hair.

That’s it.

He held the headset out to him, but just before putting it in his hand, he switched to his sword and swung. Ryan jerked his free hand back, causing him to miss it. But he wasn’t aiming for Ryan’s hand. The target he had, he hit: Erin’s hair. The sword sliced straight through it, cutting her free. Michael quickly shot his other hand forward and grabbed her arm, then pulled her behind him as Ryan reached out. When he caught nothing, he paused, and Michael could’ve sworn he saw a shadow pass over his face.

“Erin, stand on the pressure plate. Now.”

“M… Mi-”

“ _Now_ , Erin.”

Ryan pulled out a potion. As he raised his hand to throw, Michael turned and shoved Erin into the corner on top of the pressure plate. Her arm reached towards him as the potion hit him, and his vision went out as she was teleported away.

“ **MICHAE** -”

And she was gone.

Michael was stunned for a moment. She’d just said his name. No stuttering, nothing. Pride temporarily reigned for a second; she’d finally _really_ said a complete word and it was his name.

But it was said as she activated the command block. He didn’t have much time now; the TNT would go off in a few seconds.

He was jerked backwards by his hoodie, accidentally dropping his sword, then he was weightless for a second before slamming up against a wall. He coughed hard as his breath was knocked out of his lungs. He scrambled to push himself up, but he was dizzy and he had no sight to help him regain his balance. Not that it mattered, though; the TNT finally activated, blasting him up against the wall again. A loud grunt near him told him Ryan hadn’t been able to make it to the block before it was blown up. Good.

There was a pause as both men recovered and rain poured in from the now-large hole in the roof. A pause that was soon broken by Ryan.

“I suppose I didn’t really _need_ her.” What? “She just would have made it a lot easier going for my testing. I’m working on developing a potion… And y’know? I think you’d like to see my progress on it.”

Light. He was starting to see light. His vision was coming back.

“I’m not going down without a fight.” He pushed himself up, making sure he was facing Ryan now that he could see him again, or at least a fuzzy figure of him. Looked like Ryan was fully recovered now, too.

Ryan grinned and pulled out something else. It looked like… another potion. “I expected that. But you and I both know you don’t stand a chance.” Recovering vision told him it _was_ a potion.

“You sure, Ryan? I’m the best fighter in the group.” He glanced around for his sword, and -he was lucky- the explosion had landed it right by him.

He got a scoff in reply. “Really? You haven’t been able to beat me one-on-one _yet_.”

Michael reached for his weapon. “Who says I can’t start beating you now?”

Ryan drank his potion, and a blue glow surrounded him. “You’re free to try.”

 

Lightning flashed, silhouetting a warrior and a king leaping at each other, swords drawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alllright so here's the deal. the bit that i mentioned a couple chapters back that was like one of the scenes that i started writing this for? this is it. that's the scene. i've actually had it written now for a while cause i had writer's block and wanted to feel at least somewhat productive. but anyways! now here comes the fun part: i know something of how i wanna end the story, but i have no idea what to do between this point and the end. so. it'll probably be a while before i update, which stinks. tbh when it hit this point i was gonna just tell sterling how i wanted it to end and not touch it again but i will finish this. i mean there are actually people who rly like this which surprised me so i'm definitely gonna finish it for you guys. it might be a couple months, b/c i'm busy and i don't know what to write, and that's never a good combination, but i'll get it done. (edit 9-23-15: yup i was right. or was i write? ehhhh bad puns. anywho, yeah, it took me a while, but i should be back up and running now. ideas are here, and i intend to use them.)
> 
> oh yeah. about the one-on-one thing, that was about vs; i had the idea and everything for this scene literally months ago. figures that the last michael vs ryan episode before i posted this would have michael actually winning.  
> ...should i have said spoiler alert? oh well.


	15. fifteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /throws confetti  
> heyooo sorry it took me so long to get this short of a chapter out, but it seemed like a good spot to have a chapter end. also i have an idea for where to go with this, so i should be adding things more often than once every nine months.  
> ...eesh. even i didn't think it'd take that long to get back on my feet with this, but here we are.

“ **-EL!!** ” Ray’s head shot up at the sudden noise, and he was surprised to see Erin standing there in the middle of the room.

“Hey, uh, aren’t you supposed to-” he stopped talking when he saw the state she was in. “You ok? What happened?” She looked around frantically before spotting him and running over. She attempted to say something, but he couldn’t tell what she was trying to say; it was all jumbled together and flown out of her mouth at an unintelligible speed. “Woah, woah, slow down! I can’t understand you!”

She simply responded, “Mich-ael!”

He paused, thrown off by the fact that she’d actually said a coherent word, before understanding what she meant. “Wait, did something happen with Michael?” She nodded and wiped the tears off of her face.

“R… Ry…”

His eyes widened at the realization. “Ryan didn’t show up, did he?” She nodded again, and it was really obvious she was trying hard to hold herself together. “Let me… tell the guys.” He reached up and turned his headset back on. “Hey, Geoff, Jack, Gavin, you guys still up? I need to talk to you.”

 

 

 

She should’ve followed Michael to the pressure plate as soon as he’d started moving. But she didn’t, and she’d ended up being shoved onto the pressure plate as Ryan hit him with a potion. He was probably in serious danger now, and it made her feel _so guilty_ that she hadn’t done anything about it.

But she was doing something now; or rather, Gavin was. The safe house he was in was closer to Michael’s, so he elected to investigate. Geoff was also on his way, in case backup was needed. Ray, Jack, and Erin were simply staying put and waiting to hear any news on the headsets. Ray reached up and flicked his mic on.

“Gavin, you there yet?” There was a pause, then he gave an “okay” and turned it back off. Erin supposed that was the worst thing, the fact that she could only hear Ray’s half of the conversations.

He turned towards her and shook his head. At least he’d relay the messages. The two continued waiting, wanting to move around, get the tense energy out, but somehow feeling that if they moved, they’d miss something. Erin glanced back at Ray for the millionth time in five minutes to see his eyes widen for just a second, and his hand shot to his mic switch.

“Wait, what? What is it? …Gavin, Gavin, calm down. What’s-” Silence. “…Oh.” He just sat there, listening, for a moment before turning his mic back off. Erin leaned forward, staring expectantly at him. “He’s uh… It’s… Nobody’s there.” That was it. Ryan had him, didn’t he? And it was her fault; she should’ve… should’ve followed right behind him. Should’ve gotten on that pressure plate as soon as she had the opportunity. Should’ve pulled him back with her so he would’ve been teleported, too. But no, she took her time and got caught and then had a meltdown and made herself completely useless. She sat, frustrated, for a moment before pulling out her book and quill and scribbling on it.

_Sorry. That was my fault. I didn’t get on the pressure plate fast enough and he had to defend me._

She shoved it towards Ray, who raised an eyebrow curiously before taking it and reading it over. He handed it back a few seconds later.

“…No, that uh… That wasn’t your fault. He surprised you both, right?” She hesitated, then nodded. “See? He just caught you off guard. That’s his fault.” More scribbling.

 _Why don’t we just all go after him? I’m fine now. I mean, I can’t speak, but that’s not exactly necessary to hold a sword._ She intentionally left out the fact that she’d freak out if Ryan came anywhere near her.

...She was tired of hiding, really. And she didn’t want anyone else to be endangered like that because of her. Facing him one on one like that… probably wasn’t a good idea. But if they all teamed up against him, then…

Her mind thought back to when they’d gotten her out, how they’d all been teamed up against him and still lost Kerry. Then again, they’d had to protect her while doing it. If she could hold her own, maybe fly out of his reach and use a bow, she’d be fine.

He read it over, and thought for a moment. “I’ll… I’ll talk to the others about it.” He flicked on his mic. “Hey, Geoff, listen, Erin… Erin thinks she’s good now. We can go get Ryan.” A pause. “Yeah.” He glanced at her. “…Yup. …Ok.” He turned his mic off. She leaned forward again. “We’re going to head over to Geoff and Gavin. If Ryan took… If Michael’s with Ryan, he’s gonna put up a fight, so he’ll probably keep him occupied for a while at least, so we should be able to make it over alright.” He stood up. “Geoff was mad. Angrier than I’ve heard him, or at least for a long while. He was ready to go as soon as I told him what you said.” She handed him the book again.

 _So we’re going to fight Ryan?_ He nodded.

“Yeah, we’re fighting Ryan.”


End file.
